There's a recent negative review of Crooked
Cucumber on Amazon.com that is now sitting on top (though I
shamelessly put it on the bottom of my reprint of those reviews -
see Reviews list). But on Amazon.com it's the first thing that the prospective buyer sees,
saying in its header: An Over-Glorified Account. The nerve!
Anyway, it rekindles an idea I have been toying with.

You know how, as with movies, books are promoted with blurbs which were
the most positive comments that could be extracted from the reviews. Why
not make a list of the most negative blurbs that can be culled from
reviews and comments?

You can see what I've done in this vein for Crooked Cucumber by going
to Negative
Blurbs. There are two types: real negative comments - even a good
review will typically point to something the reviewer felt was lacking,
frequently in the next to last paragraph. I list these real examples
first. But there could also be negative blurbs created through the modern
miracle of dot-dot-dot (...) journalism - and that's in there next - one
scathing blurb after another culled ingeniously from each review I've
received.

I remember Mad Magazine putting
together rave blurbs out of total put down reviews - something we all
suspect when we see the real ones on book cover or movie ads.

For instance, from the following imaginary review:

"This book stunk. It is an abomination of
extremely low quality.. When it goes out of print I'll say good
riddance."

The Mad professional blurb writer would come up
with something like:

"This book... is... extremely...
good."

[And please, if you feel the spirit calling you, go to Amazon.com
and put another review, hopefully more sympathetic, on top of that one
that now covers 11 other wonderful, thoughtful readers' reviews. They list
the latest reviews on top. Bless you - and enjoy the Negative
Blurbs.-DC]